The Spinster's Christmas illustrated edition available for preorder in ebook and print This prequel book to my Lady Wynwood's Spies series will release on December 1st with an illustrated cover and more than twenty manga-style illustrations inside. You can check out this website page to see a few of the interior illustrations. It's now available at a sale pre-order price of $1.99 for the ebook ( Kindle , iBooks , Kobo ) and $6.30 (which is the minimum author's cost) for the print book ( Amazon ).  But hurry because the sale prices only last until January 1st, 2020! The book is also still available with the original cover and no interior illustrations in ebook ( Kindle , iBooks , Kobo ) and print ( Amazon ). Some of you may have also noticed that the series title changed to Lady Wynwood's Spies. Click here to read about why the series changed.

Hey everybody! It’s been a while since I’ve been online, but I promise I had good excuses! I’ve had a few bad bouts of writer’s block over the past couple years (I blogged about how I coped with it on my Story Sensei blog ), and I also was unsure about how I wanted to structure my Lady Wynwood series. When writing The Spinster’s Christmas , a lot of plot and character twists came up that I hadn’t expected when plotting the book. I was writing the book for the Mistletoe Kisses anthology, so I didn’t have much leeway in changing how that book turned out, but when it came to writing the next book in the series, I was undecided about how I wanted it to go. I could continue in the same vein as The Spinster’s Christmas and write historical romantic suspense novels only loosely related to each other, or I could go with the new overarching series idea burning in my head that would take the series in a slightly different direction. I discussed it with my husband, Captain Caffeine. My new ...

Today’s blog post is another review of the teas I received from Masters by Adagio Teas. Today I am reviewing the Balasun First Flush Darjeeling tea . See here for my thoughts on Masters Teas and its website in general. I took pictures of the tea before steeping and after steeping, but because the light is different on different days, I also included some rosemary and chocolate mint sprigs so you can compare the color of the tea. Balasun First Flush: According to the website: “Our 2019 Spring Darjeeling is an early harvest black tea from the Darjeeling region of India. Different from later harvests, this first flush has a light body and layers of character that lean toward floral with a hint of fruity notes, and a crisp clean finish. Grown on the Balasun Estate, it has all of the classic notes of a first flush that are highly prized by connoisseurs across the globe. Famous for producing some of the best quality teas, the Balasun Tea Estate (est. 1871) is spread across rolli...

Today’s blog post is another review of the teas I received from Masters by Adagio Teas. Today I am reviewing the Shi Feng Long Jing green tea . See here for my thoughts on Masters Teas and its website in general. I took pictures of the tea before steeping and after steeping, but because the light is different on different days, I also included some rosemary and chocolate mint sprigs so you can compare the color of the tea. Shi Feng Long Jing: According to the website: “Our 2019 Shi Feng Long Jing , which translates to Lion's Peak Dragonwell, is one of the most famous green teas in China. It hails from the equally famous and historic West Lake area in Hangshou, Zhejiang province. This Shi Feng Long Jing is a pre-Qing Ming Festival, and so its early spring harvest results in a tender, young plucking. The liquor is a pale yellow, with a soft, sweet chestnut aroma. The crisp body is delicately nutty, quite complex, with a flickering hint of sweet grass and apricot blossoms. ...

Today’s blog post is another review of the teas I received from Masters by Adagio Teas. Today I am reviewing the Yu Qian Anji Bai Cha green tea . See here for my thoughts on Masters Teas and its website in general. I took pictures of the tea before steeping and after steeping, but because the light is different on different days, I also included some rosemary and chocolate mint sprigs so you can compare the color of the tea. Yu Qian Anji Bai Cha: According to the website: “With its exquisite spear-like leaves, our Yu Qian Anji Bai Cha is a very young plucking. A gentle yet complex cup, it offers notes of spring flowers, sweet grass with traces of lychee. A beautiful tea for those who want the experience of a green tea without the sharp grassiness found in other styles.” “This tea contains a moderate level of caffeine. Steep at 170° for 2-3 minutes.” I put 1 heaping tablespoon of tea in 235 mL (about 1 cup) of 170℉ water for 3 minutes. Since the leaves are extremely long...

Today’s blog post is another review of the teas I received from Masters by Adagio Teas. Today I am reviewing the Ali Shan Special oolong tea . See here for my thoughts on Masters Teas and its website in general. As a disclaimer, I drink a lot of green tea—sencha, genmaicha, and hojicha—and I’m a big fan of various black teas prepared British style with milk and sometimes sugar, but I don’t drink much oolong tea. I prepared the oolongs the way it recommended on the MastersTeas.com website, but since I don’t have a lot of experience with oolong, I used this article on the smithtea.com website as reference for steeping the oolongs Gong Fu style. I have a small Japanese tea pot which I used for all the teas. I took pictures of the tea before steeping and after steeping, but because the light is different on different days, I also included some rosemary and chocolate mint sprigs so you can compare the color of the tea. Ali Shan Special: According to the website: “Our 2019 ...

I was thrilled to hear about the MastersTeas.com website by Adagio Teas. I was even more thrilled to get a chance to sample some of their teas. Masters Teas by Adagio are all freshly harvested and from small tea farms. My mom always liked to buy the expensive “first flush” or freshly picked teas at her local Japanese store, shipped straight from Japan, because she likes the superior flavor of the tea, so a website completely dedicated to freshly harvested teas is really neat. First flush teas typically have an expiration date from 6-12 months after harvest, and I could really tell that the quality decreases after a year, even if the teas are stored properly. As of this blog post, the sample packets did not have instructions for steeping (it would have been nice to have instructions on the packet), so I had to look it up on the MastersTeas.com website. I received 2 oolongs, 2 green teas, and 1 black tea sampler. Today, I’ll review the Formosa Fancy Bai Hao oolong . As a discla...